Term of Award

Summer 2022

Degree Name

Master of Science, Civil Engineering

Document Type and Release Option

Thesis (open access)

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Department

Department of Civil Engineering and Construction

Committee Chair

Marcel Maghiar

Committee Member 1

Gustavo Maldonado

Committee Member 2

Soonkie Nam

Abstract

Construction hazard is a global issue. Despite numerous research studies, safety guidelines and procedures, fatalities and severe injuries still occur on construction job sites. This research has been performed to identify the research gaps and potentially improve worker behavior along the most hazardous tasks during construction execution using 3D Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Virtual Reality (VR) devices. A safety hazards-related questionnaire for civil engineering and construction students, superintendents, safety, and project managers across six different states including the state of Georgia was deployed. The questionnaire was distributed via an online platform to identify and approach the hazards which occur during the pre-construction design and are latent until the execution of a project. Through a case-study, qualitative, and quantitative-based analysis, the study aims to investigate many hazards that remain unidentified using 3D BIM models and integrating them through VR devices. The research focuses mainly on electrical, mechanical equipment, roofing, and concrete works during the project execution. The chi-square test was used to examine the variability of the independent factors’ hazard recognition performance when they were crossed with the dependent variables (i.e., safety training, technology usage/advanced device training) to test the hypotheses. The study's findings and recommendations can be utilized by construction organizations to evaluate BIM and VR adoption and decide whether and how they should be used for hazard detection and impact mitigation. In order to emphasize on accident causation and the significance of thorough hazard recognition and appropriate risk perception, researchers created a virtual walk-through replicating acceptable actions in close proximity to specific activity risks into a VR environment. Suggestions are also made to improve course design for any construction safety training by looking at the impact of BIM in conjunction with VR on construction safety and hazard mitigation.

OCLC Number

1367354537

Research Data and Supplementary Material

Yes

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